Large passenger cruisers and car ferries are nowadays taking onboard as much as 2,500 passengers and even larger numbers are yet projected. People going on a cruise or voyage in most cases have a great deal of luggage, because lots of different outfits and travelling requisites are needed, or they, for other reasons, have plenty of luggage. Nowadays, the shifting of luggage onboard the ship in most cases takes places as a result of the passenger's own physical effort, i.e., by carrying. This is awkward, often even painful, for every passenger and especially for older and/or disabled persons. Alternatively, passengers can use services provided by porters, but even then, the shifting of luggage results from physical labor. In the previous case, the service level to the passenger is nonexistent, and in the latter case, a very remarkable number of porters are needed for a short period of time. During the voyage, there is a need for change of linen in the cabins, which further requires essentially shifting equipment and personnel to collect the used linen and to distribute the clean linen so that these operations can be carried out without disturbing the passengers in a short time period and, possibly, at desired times. During the voyage, it is also necessary to shift goods from storerooms to galleys, shops, and kiosks, and to return empty packing material to storerooms and garbage rooms. There is a further need, at least to some extent, to transport food from the galley to cabins and carry empty used dishes in the reverse direction. All this requires labor, transportation, and transporting equipment. Because the cabins, kiosks, shops and other corresponding sites onboard the ship are mostly situated on different decks than the storerooms, ship entries and cargo ports, galley and centralized preparation/processing plants, like laundries and other collecting sites, a vertical conveyor, mostly a lift, will be used for vertical transportation.
In airports there are various automated conveyor systems for the handling of luggage flows. The handling of material between the check-in point and the loading cart is carried out by these systems in a very mechanized way. The most sophisticated systems also use a code relating to a goods unit in order to express the connection between the goods unit and its owner at the end of the trip. The essence here is that the handling of the luggage takes place as an individual from the check-in to the cargo bay of the plane. The luggage handling of smaller planes is very labor intensive. At the distribution crates of the transportation system, luggage goods are manually placed in transportation carts accommodating from 15 to 20 suitcases. A tractor will pull a train of 5 to 10 carts to the plane's cargo openings and, after that, the loading of the plane will take place by manual lifting and human pushing inside the plane. In the new wide-bodied planes, the luggage is placed in freight containers, again, suitcase by suitcase manually. The transverse section of the containers matches broadly the curved form of the fuselage and the containers are loaded by articulated elevator into the plane. Within the plane, the containers are shifted by means of a train of rollers and power wheels or conveyor chains of known technology. The goods can also be supplied one by one into the plane's cargo bay by using a shift conveyor and within the plane the goods units are handled by manual piling and lashing. The luggage of an arriving airplane, without regard to the model/make of the plane, will be unloaded manually onto a conveyor belt, by which the suitcases are transported to a lounge for identification of their owners. A fast cargo unloading and loading of a large airplane is a very big challenge to the system, although such large airplanes only take about 350 persons onboard, which is a small number of persons as compared to those of a passenger vessel or a car ferry. The sorting stages in the terminal, as well as transporting stages to the airplane, loading methods, and cargo handling within the airplane, are quite rudimentary. They also differ from that handling of luggage and other material to be brought to cabins and to many operating sites, which would be required in passenger cruisers and car ferries. It is necessary to transport the luggage from the terminal, not only into the cargo space, but also into numerous cabins onboard the ship. Further, during the trip, especially during a long cruise, linen needs to be collected and transported from cabins to the laundry and again distributed back to cabins, and further, various merchandise must be shifted from the storerooms to sales offices, stores, or vending machines, to transport food and servings from the storerooms to the galleys, and further, from the galleys to the cabins, as well as to transport empty and used dishes and the like from the cabins and vendor machines back to galleys and storerooms. In known arrangements, all these movements and transports are mainly carried out manually and in very small batches.
In the application PCT/NO90/0007, there is a description about an arrangement intended for shifting of cargo units from a warehouse on a quay to cargo spaces onboard the ship by using conveyors. This arrangement comprises, within the ship, two adjacent cargo lifts and an inclined conveyor fixed to the ship as well as to the quay. It can be used for shifting of cargo units from the quay to the side cargo port and by this route to the cargo lift. The arrangement contains a conveyor leading from the warehouse on the quay towards the ship's side, between the conveyor and side there are two operating means of transportation, parallel to the ship's direction, on top of them separate conveyors operating towards the ship's side, in the inclined conveyor, there is a conveyor operating perpendicularly to the ship's side, on the lift platforms, conveyors operate perpendicularly to the ship's side, and further, in the hold, there are conveyors operating perpendicularly to ship's side. When in operation, this conveyor arrangement takes, from a warehouse on the ground, goods or batches of goods corresponding to the size of the lift platform, which moves as is, without relocation onto pallet or the like, riding on various conveyors until it ends up to ship's hold. The essence in the publication is the said inclined conveyor, which is intended to prevent the ship motions from disturbing the goods shifting between the ship and the quay. The loading of the ship's cargo hold may effectively be automated, supposing that freight units are big enough to be handled in a controlled way with these conveyors of undefined types. The arrangement described in this publication does not in any way allow shifting of the luggage, which are small, and vary considerably in shape and foot support and even sometimes are obscure. Neither is it possible with the conveyor in compliance with the publication to transport linen, dishes and equipment, nor foodstuff packages or prepared meals. The stowage of the ship's hold can be carried out with the described arrangement, but that will not give any hint of how the distribution of small, separate goods or goods batches into ship's cabins or the collection of the same from the cabins could be arranged in such a way that, if need be, the relation between the goods and the respective cabin is under control all the time.
The first aim of the invention is a remarkable enhancement of the customer service in passenger ships and car ferries by creating a distribution method in which the passenger luggage can be moved from the passenger terminal, or from the ship entrance, onboard the ship with the aid of a technical system and, further, if need be, moved directly into cabins or corresponding operation sites, and when used in an opposite direction, will enable the collection of passenger luggage from the cabins and with the aid of the technical system, moving it to the terminal or other collection site, so that there is no need for passengers or other persons to move separate luggage items. The aim is to speed up the loading and, respectively, the unloading stages, which means that the system enables a short delivery cycle for all ship-borne luggage.
The second aim of the invention is to create such a distribution method, so that by using it underway, goods units needed in cabins or otherwise in many corresponding operation sites like vendor machines, kiosks, and stores, can be transported from a centralized handling site, like a storeroom, galley, laundry, or corresponding collection site. Likewise, it is possible to transport used goods units from these operation sites back to the centralized handling plants, like storerooms, galleys, laundries or the like.
The third aim of the invention is such a distribution method, where the required equipment is taking as little as possible space within the ship both during its operation and, especially, when it is not in use.
The fourth aim of the invention is such a distribution method, in which the used equipment and tools are also simple and reliable in marine use.
The fifth aim of the invention is to create a special pallet, or the like, to be used in the distribution method in accordance with the invention, said pallet being suitable to accommodate relatively small, separate goods units and likewise being suitable to be transported by mechanical conveyors of various loads. The aim is to create a pallet by which goods units in smaller or larger batches can be transported, and is structurally simple, and if necessary, enables loading of goods units to several vertical levels and transportation of them in that form.
The sixth aim of the invention is such a pallet, that is structurally simple and its storage, when not in use, requires as little space as possible.
The seventh aim of the invention is to create such a conveyor arrangement at least to some location or locations in the distribution channel, which enables the realization of the distribution method according to the invention and the use of pallets according to the invention, so that goods units can easily be shifted to desired directions when space within the ship is used as little as possible.
The drawbacks described in the foregoing can be corrected, and the objectives defined in the foregoing can be realized, by the distribution method according to the invention, which is characterized in what is presented in the characteristic features part of claim 1 and by the transport pallet structure according to the invention, which is characterized in what is defined in the characteristic features part of claim 16, as well as by the transporting arrangement, which is characterized in what is defined in the characteristic features part of claim 22.
One of the most significant advantages of the invention is that, by using it, the luggage can be shifted fast, without physical labor from the passenger terminal to the cabins onboard the ship vice versa, whereupon the service level to the passengers is improved and the shifting of the luggage does not prolong the ship's harbor calling time. Another advantage of the invention is that the same arrangement can also be used for shifting of linen and food between the laundry and the cabins, and respectively, between the galley and the cabins, as well as for shifting of supplies for stores and kiosks, and potential vendor machines to sales locations, and, further, for shifting of potential empty cartons, bottles, and the like, back to storerooms or handling sites. A further advantage of the invention is that the equipment provided by the invention does not require appreciable space within the ship, is of simple structure, and is reliable and seaworthy.
The invention is described below in detail, referring to the accompanying drawings.